Ralph Compton Tucker's Reckoning (9781101607770)

by Compton, Ralph; Mayo, Matthew P.

  She caught his sleeve.

  He stopped, looked down at her. “I have nothing and I want nothing. As soon as my debt to you has been sufficiently paid, I will leave you be.”

  He tugged free of her grasp and strode away, looking for the first time like someone she’d never met. Someone taller, broader, bigger, and sadder than the man in the cell had ever been. It seemed as if she were seeing Samuel Tucker for the first time—and for the first time since her uncle’s murder, she knew with full certainty that Samuel Tucker hadn’t killed Payton.

  She watched him walk with purpose back down the winding, treed trail. Then she turned back to the graves and saw sprigs of late- fall clover had been set at the foot of each. She stood there thinking about the conversation she’d just had, then bade her mother, father, and uncle a good night and made her way back down the trail.

  At the barn, Arliss was busy brushing a gleam back into Gracie’s coat. What he’d done with the old horse in just a few short weeks amazed Emma. But then old Arliss had a way of surprising everyone around him, often on a daily basis.

  “You’ve worked wonders with that old bone rack, Arliss.”

  He spun, brush and currycomb held out as if to defend himself. She laughed. It was rare to be able to sneak up on him. She’d spent half her youth trying that, but he’d always make some sly remark when she was a few feet from springing on him like the wildcat she’d been pretending to be.

  “You have to get up early in the day to fool this hombre,” he’d say. “It’s my Apache trainin’. I was adopted by the tribe as a young man, see, on account of my skill as a mighty hunter and warrior. So I didn’t have to learn anything about them skills, but sneakin’ around, ain’t none better than a Apache. They’ll scalp you clean whilst you’re having your morning coffee. You won’t know it till you go to brush your hair and there ain’t nothin’ to brush!”

  She’d always laugh nervously, never quite sure how seriously to take Arliss. But today, so many years later, she felt bad that she’d gotten the drop on him. He seemed riled about it too.

  As if reading her mind, he said, “Age is gettin’ to me, I reckon. I’m like old Gracie here. Still got some use, but not on the big tasks. Yessir, I like this old horse. Reminds me of me.”

  Emma rested a hand on his shoulder. “Arliss, you’re never going to get old.”

  “How’s that work anyway? Reason I ask is if I could just bottle me some, we might could make a mother lode of a strike, take care of all our woes.”

  Emma smiled, took the brush from him, and began working on Gracie’s sleek neck. Arliss set to work currying her tail.

  “Arliss?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “You think he had anything to do with . . . Uncle Payton being shot?”

  “Tuck? Nah.”

  Emma stopped brushing. Gracie swung her head around, annoyed that her trance had been interrupted. “You said that pretty fast,” said Emma.

  “I tend to do that when I’m sure of a thing.”

  Emma resumed brushing. Gracie half closed her pretty lids, snorted in contentment.

  “Why do you ask, girl?”

  Emma didn’t respond right away. A few moments passed, and then Emma said, “I feel the same way you do. I’m sure of it. But when did you know?”

  “Pretty soon after you drug his bony carcass home. Course, I didn’t let on that I felt that way. Had to put on an act—elsewise we’d spoil him for work and for himself. He needs to learn to build himself back up to be a man again. But I seen first off that he was pitiful and had been on a long toot, but . . .”

  He stopped currying and leaned on the horse. Gracie’s flank twitched and she looked at them both. “See, girl, there’s two types of men in this world. Men who are just good, the type who go ahead and give something all they got and go through their days not even thinking about not hurtin’ anybody or anything because it just don’t occur to them to hurt something in the first place. You see? Then there’s the other type: rascals who are always looking for an easy road, looking to scare up a meal without having to work for it, people be damned. Them are the type we got in them devils we know, ol’ Grissom and his boys.”

  “But not Tucker.”

  “No, Emma. Not Tucker. I do believe he’s one of the good ones. But you didn’t hear it from me.” He winked at her.

  “That goes along with what he told me.”

  “Oh, what was that?”

  “I surprised him up at the graves.”

  “What was he doing up there?”

  “Said it was peaceful. I’m afraid I said some things that I didn’t mean.”

  “Just like a Farraday. I swear, a spikier crew I’ve never met.”

  “Yeah, well, he ended up telling me a bit about himself. He’s from Texas. Had a spread down there . . .” She looked at Arliss.

  “That all?”

  She shook her head. “He also had a wife and a baby girl.”

  “Had?” said Arliss, paused, his leathery hands flat on the horse’s hide.

  “Yeah. A fever maybe, some sickness got them. I gather he lost it all.”

  “That would account for his drinkin’, then. And it just goes to show what I said before. I’d wager that man couldn’t hurt a bug . . . unless it plumb riled him. And then it’d only be for the right reasons. But good men like that”—he wagged the currycomb at her—“once you get them fired up, they can be awful sudden men, and when they’re on the boil, you best keep clear.”

  Emma brushed Gracie for another silent minute, then handed Arliss the brush. “Thanks, Arliss. I have to go . . . do something.” She kissed him on the cheek. Just before she left the barn, she leaned back in and said, “Arliss? You’re one of the good ones.”

  He shook his head, blushing, then shouted, “If I’m so all-fired fancy, how come I ain’t allowed to have a beer or three? Heh?”

  He resumed brushing the grateful old horse. “Gracie, I do believe we are in for an interesting time of it.” He chuckled and brushed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “Arliss, I believe I’ll visit Louisa when we’re in town. She promised to help me with finishing off that dress.”

  Arliss nodded, flung another forkful of dung onto the pile by the door.

  Tucker cinched down the last of the cloth-wrapped beef and leaned against the side of the wagon. “You wear dresses?”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Well, I’ve only ever seen you dress like a cowhand.”

  She felt her face flush with shock, then familiar anger. Why did this man get under her skin so? What right had he to say something like that to her, much less say anything to her? Despite her welling urge to drive her fist into his nose, blacken his brown-green eyes, she held her fists and her tongue. And instead she shrugged into her sheepskin jacket and tugged on her worn leather gloves. “Because that’s what I am.” She pulled her hat down low and looked at him. “Another thing? I’m also your boss. Get to work or get gone.”

  Tucker watched her as she led the horse on out the front door of the barn.

  Behind him he heard a low wheeze. He turned to see Arliss, bent over, one gnarled hand slapping a knee. He was about to ask if he was okay because the old man looked as if he was choking. Arliss turned his whiskery old face up to look at Tucker and Tucker realized he’d been laughing so hard, tears were running down his face.

  “What’s so funny, Mr. Tibbs?”

  When the red-faced codger could catch a breath, he wheezed out, “Didn’t think you had one.”

  “What?”

  “Spine enough to rile her. She’s got your number, boy. Got you pegged, sure as I got rheumatics in every blessed bone in my body. Hoo-ee!”

  Tucker stared at the empty open door. “I just don’t know what to make of her. Can’t figure he
r out.”

  “And you never will, boy.”

  Tucker turned back around. “How’s that?”

  “I say you never will quite know what makes her tick either. ’Cause she’s a Farraday! They’re all like that. Good news is that you got a whole lifetime ahead of you to work on it.”

  Tucker grimaced. “What makes you think I’m sticking around where I’m not wanted?”

  “Oh, you’ll stick.” The old man turned, shaking his head as he set back to work pitching dung. “You’ll stick. Love’ll see to that.”

  “Love? You’re crazy, old man.”

  “Yeh, no argument there.” He touched a finger to the side of his nose. “But I do know a thing or two about Farradays and a thing or three about love. I been down that road myself a time or two and it’s a rosy path. But it can be a thorny thing too. Best keep your boots on and be careful where you step.”

  “You might know Farradays and you might know love—I’ll not argue any of that—but you don’t know a thing about Samuel Tucker.”

  “I know enough to know she sees something in you that excites her and scares her. And from what I can tell, it ain’t all bad. I do believe I’m beginning to think I was wrong about you.” The old man held up a finger in warning. “Beginning, I said. I ain’t all convinced yet. ’Specially since you ain’t done a lick of work yet today. Now get on it or I just may have to light into you, take a round or two out of you myself, you insolent pup!” He swung the hay fork in a wide arc and cackled as Tucker jumped back and headed for the door, shaking his head and mumbling to himself.

  “He’ll do,” said Arliss, smiling in the dark of the stall. “I reckon he’ll do. Heh!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Tucker watched Emma and Arliss headed on up the road in the wagon, Julep setting a brisk trot. She’d recovered most of her smiling demeanor, despite what he’d said earlier about how she dressed. He hadn’t been wrong, but it seemed he didn’t know how to talk when he was around her. With Rita, it had been easy; he’d known her nearly his entire life. But this woman, Emma Farraday, now, there was a spitfire with a streak of wildcat one minute and an easy smile and relaxed chat the next. He didn’t know what he felt, but he knew it was foolish to feel anything for her more than gratitude that she’d saved him from a certain hanging.

  Tucker walked back into the barn, finished saddling Jasper, the dead man’s horse. Oddly enough, it had been the horse they both had insisted he use since he’d gotten there. “Only one that won’t sag trying to hold up your big bones,” Arliss had said.

  Arliss had wanted him to venture out across the river to the far valley to look for a late-calving cow and her calf. The old man said that in years past they’ve had a number of cows head in there looking for a private, woody place to bed down and calve on their own. Tucker knew many of them did such things when their time came.

  He filled his canteen, checked the rifle in the boot, extra shells in his coat pocket, and welcomed the recent loosening of the tenseness between them all. It had been a long few weeks, not being able to do much of anything other than work, and eat and sleep. Yet oddly it had been enough. Felt as though he didn’t need more in his life. At least at the moment. He’d not felt so good, so hopeful in a long time. Odd, that, considering he was a fugitive holed up at the home of the very man he’d been accused of killing.

  He felt odd once again that he was wearing the clothes of a dead man, riding a dead man’s horse, using that man’s gun and saddle, and eating his food at his table.

  “Are you your own man anymore, Samuel Tucker?” he asked himself out loud as he rode out across the near meadow, scattering close-pastured stock that thundered away a few dozen yards before halting stiff-legged, staring at him with ears perked. He shook his head. Cows were cows the world over; he guessed they’d do the same thing every day, a hundred days in a row.

  The bases of the two closest hills sat dark with trees, the valleys thickly forested with immense firs. Never had he seen so many trees, so much lush green growth. Even this late in the year, it seemed there was grass for the stock to eat.

  What would winters be like here? He’d hesitated to ask Arliss and Emma, lest they take his question to mean he was angling for a place to stay. He was aware that his presence in their lives had put them at the raw edge of danger with Marshal Hart. And if what they’d told him was the truth, Grissom was the most powerful man for many miles. And becoming more powerful by the week, it seemed.

  He rode for the better part of an hour, the sun nearly overhead. The day was turning warm and he loosened the buttons of his light red-and-black wool mackinaw. That too had belonged to Payton. He was grateful that they were of the same large build, lest he have fewer clothes to wear, especially in the encroaching cold season.

  Jasper stood tall, blowing in the cool of the forest. Far below, near a stream just south of this valley connected with the Rogue River, he saw a skipper mule deer drinking from the stream. Now, that would be a fine treat, he thought, already sliding the rifle from its boot. The big buckskin stood as if used to such behavior as Tucker tied the reins tight to a stout low branch.

  He raised the rifle, slowly cocked back the hammer all the way, sighted on the thick fur of the deer. Its cold-weather coat had come in nicely. Right there, at the shoulder, a clean kill. His forefinger tightened on the trigger, tighter, tighter—the deer raised its head, alarmed, then shifted its stance, obscuring his shot by a tree halfway between them. He would have to wait for the deer to step a pace to either side. He eased off his finger’s pressure on the trigger and resisted the urge to swear.

  Upstream, to Tucker’s right, he heard twigs snapping, the steady alternating crunch, snap, crunch, snap of an incautious man’s feet on deadfall branches, then the heavy, rasping breath of a man unused to exertion. All this Tucker heard at the same time as the young buck, and the skipper bolted into a brown blur. No way to get a shot now.

  Only then did Tucker swing his gaze around and spot the man. There he was, far below, oblivious of both Tucker, far above him on the valley slope, and of the long-gone deer he’d startled. Tucker eased off the hammer, slid the rifle back in its boot, never taking his eyes off the bumbling stranger.

  The man had something balanced over his left shoulder, looked like polished wood of some sort topped with something that glinted now and again as sunlight hit it while the man struggled forward through the thick trees. He wheezed and soon stopped, almost directly below Tucker on the slope. Tucker watched him a moment more, and soon heard men’s voices coming from the same direction as had the wheezing man.

  They were talking, discussing something of humorous interest to them all, for the talk elicited great side-smile hoots. They too tramped into view and Tucker saw what they were then—a gang of men looking to survey land, judging from the implements they all carried. And by the looks of them, most red-faced and chests working like a smithy’s bellows, they were also unaccustomed to working vigorously out-of-doors. They also hadn’t come all that far hefting and lugging such gear.

  What were they up to? This was Farraday land—that much Tucker knew. With Arliss and Emma in Klinkhorn, Tucker felt an odd sense of duty to investigate, set these men straight if need be. The Farradays owned enough land around these parts that there was little chance these men were off their course somehow or cutting across Farraday land to get to another spread. No, Tucker sensed there was something afoot—or maybe a mistake. He hoped it was the latter. No better time than the present, he told himself and headed downhill, cutting a zigzag pattern through the trees and leading Jasper by the reins. It didn’t take the men long to spot him.

  Tucker saw that several of them wore sidearms, and their hands instinctively hovered near them. The rest of the men stood, heads cocked and brows pulled tight in concern, no trace of smiles on their faces.

  “Ho there,” said Tucker, waving an open hand as he app
roached. None of them said a thing for a few moments, so he kept walking toward them. Finally they must have taken him as posing little threat, for they relaxed.

  “Hello there,” said the first man he’d seen, who by now had recovered his breath, though his face was red from the exertion of his walk through the woods. “You lost?”

  “I was just about to ask you all the same thing.” Tucker had stopped just short of the group, keeping himself back enough that if need be he could drag the buckskin between himself and the men, should any trouble start. It might just buy him enough time to shuck that rifle from the boot and draw on them. He had no sidearm and hadn’t wished for one until now. Neither Emma nor Arliss carried one and they hadn’t offered him the use of one, so he hadn’t much thought of it, but he sure wished he had one now.

  “How’s that, mister?” The burly man looked annoyed with Tucker’s statement.

  “This here is Farraday property, pretty near as far as you can see in most directions for quite a distance. I don’t imagine you’re here by accident.”

  Another man, slimmer, taller, and more dapper than the rest, stepped forward. He wore an elaborate mustache and chin hair. A dandy if Tucker had ever seen one. “You suppose correctly, sir.” The rest of the men seemed to melt back from this man. Must be the boss dog, thought Tucker.

  The man’s speech bore an accent. English, if Tucker wasn’t incorrect. He’d met a couple of English waddies in the past, some Australians too, and he always confused their accents. “As I say, then, this here is Farraday land.”

  “Yes, yes, I heard you. We were just about to make a last set of measurements, but I suspect I am a fifth wheel here. My men will do the necessaries. You and I can head back to our camp. I will fill you in on the proceedings, lest you think we are violating the place.”

  A couple of the men snickered, but a harsh glance from the foreigner shut them up. Camp, thought Tucker. What sort of camp would these men have set up? And what could they possibly be measuring?